Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg yesterday rolled out new AI products for consumers, including smart glasses that can answer questions and stream directly on Facebook, as well as bots that create photo-realistic images and an updated virtual-reality headset.
Zuckerberg described the products as bringing together virtual and real worlds, and underscored that part of what Meta offered was low cost or free AI that could integrate into daily routine. Meta’s Quest is the bestseller in the nascent VR space and the company’s executives described it as the best value in the industry, a nod to the impending release of a much more expensive headset from Apple.
Speaking from a central courtyard on Meta’s sprawling Silicon Valley campus, Zuckerberg said a new generation of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses would start shipping on October 17, priced at $299.
The device will incorporate a new Meta AI assistant and be capable of livestreaming broadcasts of what a user is seeing directly to Facebook and Instagram, an advancement over the previous generation’s ability to snap photos.
Earlier in the presentation Zuckerberg said the latest Quest mixed-reality headset would start shipping on October 10.
Zuckerberg spoke at the Meta Connect conference, the social media company’s biggest event of the year as well as its first in-person conference since the start of the pandemic.
He also introduced the company’s first consumer-facing generative AI products, including the Meta AI chatbot that can generate both text responses and photo-realistic images.
“This isn’t just going to be about answering queries,” Zuckerberg said. “This is about entertainment and about helping you do things to connect with the people around you.”
Meta AI will also be built in to the smart glasses as an assistant, starting with a beta rollout in the US. A software update planned for next year will give the assistant the ability to identify places and objects that people are seeing, as well as to perform language translation.
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